


You Should Have Run

by arbarkati



Category: Bat Out of Hell Trilogy - Meat Loaf (Albums)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-20 21:54:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17030688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbarkati/pseuds/arbarkati
Summary: She's caught off guard by the proposal.





	You Should Have Run

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyoneill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyoneill/gifts).



“Hey, Alexis. You in there?” Julie asked, her voice muffled from the fact that she was in her bedroom of their shared apartment. As roommates went, Julie was more than decent, Alexis thought.

“Yeah, what?” Alexis asked. “Not going anywhere, you know that.” She watched as Julie emerged, something hidden in one fist, and wondered if Julie was going to give her one of her techie things. Julie seemed to like to do that, and Alexis had no idea why.

“Well… will you marry me?” Julie asked, fumbling with a box and then kneeling down, the box in her outstretched hands.

Alexis could only stare. "What? How?" she asked. "Are you serious?" Julie couldn't be serious, not with everything that had happened to the both of them. Alexis loved Julie, and she knew that Julie loved her, but she was sure that Julie had lost her mine. Gone off her rocker. Whatever.

"Very serious," Julie replied. She looked up at Alexis with a smile on her face that was reflected in her eyes. “I’ve been thinking about it for a long time, and well, you know, Mom did want us to get married….”

“But my criminal record….” Alexis reminded her. “I’m not ashamed of it, but…” She’d done it for Julie, a woman who had done nothing to get in trouble the day they’d met. Julie had just wanted to fix things, to repair what had been broken.

“I know,” Julie replied. She was still holding the box with the ring. “Is that a yes?”

Alexis’ looked at the large, framed photo hanging on the wall of their home. Technically, they were roommates, but they’d become more and more a couple over the years. She just didn’t know what she could contribute to the marriage. “I don’t deserve it. You can’t take me anywhere.”

“I would take you anywhere, silly.” Julie got up, pulling the ring out of the box and putting it on Alexis’ unresisting finger.

“Fuck it, Julie, your mother just died three months ago, and you want to get married? She’s not even cold in her grave!”

“She’s definitely cold. It’s been a hot summer, but maybe she’d still be recognizable. I don’t know. All I know is that she said that you made me smile, and besides, who would keep the house clean? Certainly not me.” Julie cocked her head in that endearing way of hers.

“You’ve been watching too many true crime shows and you really need to lay off Forensic Files.” But Alexis had to admit that she was good at cleaning. Definitely good at cleaning, and not a neat freak. Julie relied on her to keep the place respectable, because Julie, to be honest, was a slob. Besides, Julie paid for the groceries and the utilities, because she could barely afford her half of the rent. “So you think we should make this formal, huh?”

“Might as well,” Julie said. “I love you, Alexis Ichikawa.” She reached out and took Alexis’ hands, raised one up and kissed it.

“Even if I abandon you in a graveyard again, Julie Iwasaki?” Alexis asked. She tried to make her tone light, but she remembered that long-ago moment, when she met Julie. When the other girl was trying to fix that broken headstone in the abandoned, falling apart cemetery. Alexis had tried to help, really help, but it had been far too heavy.

“You’d never abandon me,” Julie said with confidence. “I know that you would never leave me behind, not again. We’d do anything for each other.”

“Almost anything,” Alexis replied. “Don’t think that just because I have a criminal record that I’m doing murder.” Although maybe she would kill for Julie; she felt like she’d done everything else.

“I’d never ask you to do that.” Julie’s smile dropped a little. “Or commit any crimes. Even if you did do those for me.”

“Well, as I’ve been trying to point out to you, I’ve gone to jail for theft and shoplifting,” Alexis reminded her. “Are you sure you want to get married to a career criminal?”

Honestly, why couldn’t Julie remember that? They’d been in contact since they were both teens, running into each other at school after that night.

“If that career criminal is you, then I’m fine with that,” Julie said. “I’ve done my budgeting. If I work full-time and you have your part-time job, then we’ll be okay financially. I make more than enough, and I am trying to get a promotion. Eventually, we’ll be able to move into a nicer place.”

A nicer place. Alexis tried to think about that kind of life, living in an apartment that wasn’t really too small for the both of them. It would be nice, but she wouldn’t be pulling her weight on that, no matter what Julie said. “Really?”

“It’ll take a while, but yes.” Julie pulled up a chair. “We’ll start saving up for a downpayment, and then… get a mortgage and buy a house and it’ll be great. I mean, we’ll have to find at least a two-bedroom, and what do you think about kids?”

“I think you should slow down,” Alexis shook her head. “We haven’t even really discussed anything other than the fact that we’re getting married. I’m glad that you feel comfortable planning out our lives, but there’s a lot you have to think about. Me, too. I mean, we live together, but we’ve lived together as roommates. We haven’t tried to build a life together.”

“We’ve paid rent together. You’re reliable, Alexis, what more could I ask for?” Julie asked. “I trust you.”

“Why? Why should you?” Alexis asked. “Me? I’ve gone down to hell. Prison wasn’t a walk in the park.” She knew Julie had watched documentaries on prison life. Julie had said that much, that she’d done it to understand what Alexis had been through. Alexis had watched those documentaries, and critiqued them for Julie. It had been a miracle that she hadn’t been addicted to drugs or anything, and hell if she wanted anybody to be in her private space.

“But you survived it, and you were still the person I met,” Julie said. “Mom was worried too, at first, but you haven’t really changed, not to me and not to her. Yeah, I know it’s hard. But Mom wanted me to be happy with you.”

Alexis wanted to hide her face in her hands. “Julie, I can’t think of anyone I’d want to spend my life with, but why am I the one that’s being real? This is not going to be easy, or at least not as easy as you think it’s going to be.”

“And that’s what I love about you,” Julie leaned forward. “When I get excited, you keep me grounded. Yes, I know things changed you, but you’re still the same person who listened to me and was willing to do something even if you weren’t there to try to fix things like I was. It’s my fault. I didn’t run, and I should have. I just had trust that I wouldn’t get in trouble. You were the one who realized we would. You told me to run. And I didn’t.”

“And you didn’t.” Alexis echoed. Maybe Julie was right. Maybe Julie did need her, as broken as she felt. Maybe she was the one that needed to make sense. She wasn’t sure that she was the best choice, but bizarre as it was, Julie trusted her.

She would just have to take all the skills she’d learned, outside and inside, to try to keep that innocent, strange love safe and warm. Make her whole, just like she’d tried to make those gravestones whole.

Reaching forward, she put her hands on Julie’s shoulders, brought her close, and kissed her.


End file.
